this sunday, the new covid surge. >> i think we're looking at a potentially surge in cases that's so large we overwhelm our hospitals. >> the omicron variant exploding across the globe. >> what we're seeing in some of the other countries is doubling times of about every two days or so. and across the united states. >> as we know, there will be plenty of breakthrough infections. that's for sure. >> cases rising sharply be a spike in deaths likely to follow sflchl. >> we're fired. the hospitals are stretched. resilience is low. please, get vaccinated. >> my guest this morning, dr.

anthony fauci and the governor of colorado. plus the house votes to charge mark meadows with criminal contempt. >> we won't let the facts be buried by a coverup. >> the former trump chief of staff refusing to comply with the january 6th committee. >> the executive privilege is trump's to weigh, not mine. >> this as january 6th texts from the former allies of the president comes to light. >> one of the president's sons texted mr. meadows. quote, he's got to condemn this [ bleep ] asap. he is destroying his legacy, laura ingram wrote. and build back when. if biden couldn't get build back better or voting rights done this year -- >> there's nothing more important than voting rights. >> why would next year be any different? joining me for analysis, amna nawaz.

phil rucker, donna edwards, and john podhoretz. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press". good sunday morning. it's beginning to look a lot like a covid christmas. and beyond for millions of americans this winter could resemble a rerun of the awful previous covid surges as the omicron variant speeds across the country. nfl games are being rescheduled. back to work plans being rescrapped and some schools including harvard are returning to remote learning. deaths are occurring at a faster rate than at any other time other than last winter's surge. in fact, the 7 -day case average is 130,000 nearly. that's nearly a 35 % increase over the case average since

thanksgiving. omicron appears to be far more contagious than delta, meaning a spike in cases could once again overwhelm hospitals. hospitals that are already a bit overwhelmed in some parts of this country. at the same time, months after president biden all but declared independence from covid, americans are simply fatigued with being fatigued. his administration felt deflated, begging the unvaccinated to get shots. they're not even doing daily briefings. the president will address the country in response to the latest coronavirus on tuesday. we said it a year ago. as covid goes, so goes mr. biden's presidency. though he's not responsible for the latest wave, he may wind up paying the political price for us. >> for unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death. >> with hospitals already at their breaking point, the rise of omicron is fueling worries about another covid winter. >> growing concerns over the spread out omicron variant. >> doctors say omicron could be

our dominant variant. >> 80% of covid cases tested are now the omicron variant. >> reporter: the surge forcing a wave of cancellations. the nfl postponing games after a cluster of outbreaks. the rockettes cancelling the rest of their season, and there are growing concerns about this week's holiday travel. >> the flight is full. all the planes are full. >> where does that leave us heading into the holidays? >> not in a good place. >> reporter: the cdc thinks we could have more than 1.3 million cases by christmas day. by january, deaths could rise up to 15,000. for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm. experts say those with booster shots are largely protected from severe illness. hospitalizations are up 20 % over the past two weeks. many hospitals nearing capacity.

>> last friday i had a doctor that just sobbed on the phone with me and said to 34e, debbie, people are dying. not because of covid. because we can no longer take patients. >> in a study, 40% of nurses and nearly one in four doctors said they are moderately likely or definitely planning to quit the profession within two years. >> we're tired. the hospitals are stretched. resilience is low. please, get vaccinated. >> just 61% of americans are fully vaccinated. two doses. trailing more than 50 other countries. many republicans have declined to push back against vaccine skeptics in their own party. instead, ignoring or catering to a flood of misinformation. >> zinc, keep yourself held thil. standard gargle, mouthwash has been proven to kill the coronavirus. you need to get it. if -- you may reduce viral application.

why not try all these things? >> and president biden's vaccination or testing requirements are under assault by republicans. >> democratic politicians are authoritarians. >> you can't just have these bureaucracies that are running amuck. >> they have gone too far. on friday a federal appeals courtstated the testing mandate for large businesses. setting up a likely showdown at the supreme court. but believing that the white house has lost the political fight, even some democrats are souring on vaccine requirements. >> i truly believe that there should be a vaccine mandate for federal government, private sector is a different one. i do not support. >> would have done it different myself, but look, it's -- hindsight is always 20/20. >> you can't at the end of the day force people to do something they don't want to do. a reminder, despite the recent court victory, the biden administration plans to delay the implementation of the covid vaccine mandates by a month. joining me is dr. anthony

fauci. dr. fauci, welcome back to "meet the press". >> thank you. >> let me start with the issue of omicron in this sense. on friday there's been -- an friday you suggested it might be less severe. we've seen a lot of new study out of the uk that seems to be perhaps sending a mixed signal. what can you share with us this morning on where omicron is and how much of a threat it is? >> well, the one thing that's very clear, and there's no doubt about this. this is extraordinary capability of spreading. the transmissible capability is just raging through the world, really. if you look even here in the united states, you have some regions that start off with a few percent of the ice lats that are positive now going up to 30, 40, in some cases 50%. so yes, there is this issue of

whether or not it is more or less severe. the information we're getting from our south african colleagues still suggests that when you look at it totally, the hospitalization to case ratio is less than with delta. there seems to be less durability of symptom, less requirement for ox jeb, but you've got to be careful. that might be due really to the fact that their population has so much experience with prior infections that it might be underlying immunity that's making it look like it's less severe. and as a virus, it inherently may not be less severe. no matter how you look at it, chuck, when you have so many, many infections, even if it is less severe, that overcomes this slight to moderate diminution in severity, because our hospitals, if things look like they're looking now in the next week or

two, are going to be very stressed with people. because, again, we have so many people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet been vaccinated. and that's going to be a real problem for stress on the hospital system. >> do we have the right protocols in place? are we traveling? do you believe we're -- the amount of travel that's going to take place in the next two weeks is reasonable considering the situation we're in or should we be -- should folks be making -- be rethinking their travel plans? >> well, i think people just need to be prudent. clearly when you travel, there is always a risk of increased infection. that just goes with respiratory illness. but if people need to travel and want to travel for the obvious family reasons during this holiday season, if you're vaccinated and you're boosted, and you take care when you go into group settings like airports, to make sure you continually wear your mask, you

should be okay. but we are going to see breakthrough infections, chuck. there no doubt about that. the difference between a vaccinated and boosted person who has an infection and someone who has an infection who has never been vaccinated, a major difference with regard to the risk of severity. >> well, let's start -- i want to go through a few scenarios. people are trying to figure out what should they do if something happens in their household? so you have a covid positive breakthrough of a vaccinated person. how many times do they need to test negative before they should feel comfortable going back into society? >> well, the general rule is if it's about 7 to 10 days following the onset of symptoms, they're going to be okay. you want to get tested to show that, that's fine, but really duration from the time you initially get symptoms. that's up of the things i think people need to understand. you want to quarantine yourself in the sense of isolating yourself from the rest of the

family so you don't spread it around. but that's the general rule of thumb. >> all right. what about if you're vaccinated, you don't have covid, but you've been exposed to covid, what is your responsibility? what is your recommendation? >> no, if you are vaccinated and you're exposed, you don't need to isolate yourself. some people, and i think it would be prudent to wind up getting tested. testing now is so much more available, chuck, than it was in the past, and we're going to be better looking forward over the next few weeks to a month. so, again, you don't need to isolate yourself or quarantine yourself, for sure, if you are vaccinated. but you might want to get a test a couple days later to make sure you have not had a breakthrough infection, if, in fact, you're vaccinated and hopefully boosted. >> well, you kind of answered my followup which is does -- look, we've seen this ourselves. somebody tests -- there's a positive in the house. somebody tests negative, a

brother or sister tests negative, and then the next day they test positive. so how many days from exposure should you feel comfortable that a negative test is truly a negative test? >> yeah. you want to wait at least three and up to five days following it. you might want to get a couple tests. test one in three to five days and maybe one a little bit later. the tests that are now available, the point of care antigen tests are not as sensitive as the pcr test, but if you do them sequentially, one or two or more, you're going to get a result that would be an accurate result. >> what should we expect from president biden on tuesday? i asked this question. what more can be done that you already haven't done in your mind? >> well, what you're going to hear from the president, i don't want to get ahead of the president, but he's going to stress several of the things and upscaling some of the things we've been talking about.

he came out with his winter plan which is really a good plan. getting people boosted who are vaccinated. getting children vaccinated. making testing more available, having surge teams out because we know we're going to need them because there will be an increased demand on hospitalization. strengthening the safety of travel, and providing vaccines for the rest of the world so that we can look at this as a global problem, not only a problem here in the united states, because what happens globally certainly impacts us. but you're going to hear a bit more about that. we're looking forward to the president's speech on tuesday. >> i'm curious on the issue of boosters. you and i have had a conversation multiple times in the last four months, and i've asked you multiple questions on boosters. are we ahead or behind the science. president biden at one point said we should probably do it after five months after talking to israeli officials. there were some thoughts in

august it should be eight months. there was confusion about six months. there's been a lot of ambiguity, if you will. now all the sudden omicron is here and there's no more ambiguity, but how much did this booster confusion set us back? >> i don't think it set us back, chuck. it became very clear that we said six months or more after at least six months, go get boosted. if it's johnson & johnson, it's two months. i think those recommendations from the cdc were pretty clear. the one thing we want to make sure people understand right now is that when your time comes to get booed, get boosted. because when you look at omicron, all the data in omicron indicate that even with the good protection that you get, certainly against severe disease from a two-dose mrna, when you look at what it does against omicron, it's down considerably to a level where you really need to get boosted. if we're going to deal with omicron successfully, vaccinated people need to get boosted, and

obviously people who are not vaccinated clearly need to get vaccinated now more than ever. >> well, let's talk about what the definition of a fully vaccinated is. number one, should we expect that definition to change? i know that's not your decision. i assume that's a cdc decision. but let me ask you this. if you're advising a private company that does have a vaccine mandate, or a vaccine requirement, would you tell them that they should make boosters part of the requirement? >> you know, i would tell them if they want their enterprise, their place of employment optimally protected, that you should get boosted. as you said, there is this technicality of a definition for requirement purposes. but if someone comes to me and says what is the best thing that i can do, i would tell them to get people boosted. no doubt about that. particularly now in the environment of omicron. the data are clear, chuck, about omicron. it really needs to get boosted. >> i'm curious, is there a -- a

lot to learn from all of the professional sports leagues about two issues? one, the issue of boosters and two, the issue of the johnson & johnson vaccine? i know now we're not really recommending it. and it does seem as if the johnson & johnson vaccine was very popular with athletes. and here we are, and i know they get tested more than most of the rest of the population. is that why it's been so many breakthrough cases? >> you know, that is possible. there's no doubt now as we get more and more data that when you look at the data in general, that the mrna are preferable to the johnson & johnson. the reason the that recommendation very explicit was not only the degree of efficacy. it was the risk of getting thrombosis, the blood clotting issue that generally women who are between a certain age get. so it isn't seen much in men.

almost exclusively in women. when you put together the risk of the blood clot and the less of efficacy when you compare them head to head, that's why the cdc came out clearly that it's preferable to get an mrna. >> is it -- how likely is it that omicron will replace delta, the way delta replaced alpha? or are we really going to have two of these variants circulating simultaneously? >> you know, we don't know yet, chuck, for sure. you have to see how it rolls out. if you look at what's happening, what happened in south africa, what's happening in the uk, and what's beginning to happen now, i would not be surprised if omicron bumped delta off the table, because, for example, in certain regions in the country, there's up to 50% of the isolates are omicron.

that's a doubling time of anywhere from two to three days. when you have a doubling time that short a period, pretty soon it takes over. >> i want to ask you to react to one thing. the vice president said in an interview on friday, we didn't see delta coming. i think most scientists did not upon whose advice and direction we have relied. didn't see delta coming. we didn't see omicron coming and that's the nature of what this awful virus has been which as it turns out has mutations and variants. dr. fauci, perhaps nobody could have seen the specific of delta or omicron, but did you not see variants coming, or did you? >> yeah. i did. and i think that the vice president's statement was taken a bit out of context. i believe she was referring to the fact that the extraordinary number of mutations and substitutions, particularly with omicron, no one had expected it that much, but we were

well-prepared and expected that we were going to see variants. there's no doubt about that. but i believe that the vice president was referring to the fact that if you look at the number of mutations in omicron, it's unprecedented. there are about 50 of them. 30 of them in the spiked protein. we've never seen anything like that before. so in that context, she was correct. >> all right. dr. fauci, i'll admit i have 17,000 other questions. but we don't have that much time. i'm sure we'll be seeing you in the days to come. appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise. >> thank you, chuck. good to be with you. up next, how our state is going to deal with the new dangerous covid wave. are we about to see more mask mand at♪ music ♪ ♪ dream, dream when you're feeling blue ♪ ♪ dream, dream that's the thing to do ♪

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whip-sawed by covid news. good news, tens of millions are vaccinated. bad news, omicron means a third shot is more essential. omicron appears to cause less severe disease. bad news, out of the uk maybe not. the science is not that clear. that makes the job of promoting publ more difficult. jared polis was asked a week ago why he opposed a mandatory mask mandate in his state. >> the emergency is over. public health doesn't get to tell people what to wear. that's just not their job. you don't tell people to wear a jacket when they go out in the winter and force them to. if they get frostbite, it's their own darn fault. governor polis joins me now. governor, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> always a pleasure, chuck. >> look, a lot has changed since you made those comments on the issue of omicron literally in the last 72 hours. i know you've clarified when it

means emergency meaning state action on the emergency. given everything you've heard from dr. fauci and everything you've seen, are you having any second thoupts about the state intervening here temporarily whether it's a mask mandate or something else? >> you know, chuck, we're two years into this thing. and i think it's really important that our leaders, whether they're governors, mayors, local influencers, lead with facts rather than fear. people just don't react well to this on going environment of fear for two years. the science-driven information people need to keep themselves safe with the individual freedom and local control that we dpe serve. that's where we are at this point. we know how to stop this thing. getting stlee doses of the vaccine is highly effective and all but negates any risk that you face. we need to make sure people go out and do it. >> are you going to change the definition of fully vaccinated in your state? i know you have had -- there's

some specific entities you want to see have vaccinated. based on what you've heard, are you going to change those definitions? >> that's certainly where it's headed, chuck. irt looks like from everything we know that to significantly reduce the risk of the omicron variant, three doses of the vaccine are needed. by the way, chuck, this is normal with many other vaccines. i have young kids who has the dtap vaccine, three kids with the diphtheria and tetanus. i wish they'd stop talking about it as a booster. it is a three-dose vaccine. every piece of data we're seeing shows that's the case. >> how about your testing capacity, all over the east coast over the last 48 hours, a run on the at-home tests. can't find enough of them. by the way, they're pretty pricey. if they're considered something that essential, should they be

priced as high as they are, and we've seen a few public places to get tested. do you need more resources on that? what's the situation in colorado? >> we've made free at-home testing available to every coloradoan for months now. right to your doorstep you get the free test. it's a popular program. we're certainly planning on continuing it for the time being. it's also important to note that while the northeast is going up in cases, our region in the rocky mountain west has been going down for several weeks. we peaked in october, early november, we have a lot less hospitalizations than we did a few weeks ago. that can change on a dime with the omicron variant. we're in a better place than we were a month ago. the free at-home tests have been very popular with the people of colorado. >> if president biden calls you up tomorrow and says what do you want to hear from me on tuesday night? what's important, what helps you do your job in getting things

better in colorado, what would you tell the president? >> i would say stop talking about the vaccine as a booster. people who have gotten those three doses in our colorado data, which is similar to the national data, are 47 times less likely than people that are unvaccinated. it essentially negates the risk. nothing is risk-free in life. if you're boosted, you can feel very confident, if you get covid, it will be a minor case. we need to focus on increases in prices and costs that people across the country are facing. people are frustrated. therapy thanksgiving turkey cost 50% more, gas is $3.80 a gallon. let's show relief. in colorado it's cutting vehicle registration fees, making it free to start a business. we've cut taxes twice. these kind of things show we're doing what we can to make sure the families can get by and thrive. >> interesting you bring up the inflation issue.

it feels like the rise of omicron is only going to set us back on that since the supply chain seems to be the biggest impediment when it comes to the inflation issue. you've talked about some things you've done. is there anything outside what the federal reserve does that impact inflation in your mind? >> you know what public policymakers can do, governors, slaters, president, congress, we can save people money. if you save people money on child care, that makes a real difference in people being able to work, and also the development of the child. if you can save people on vehicle registration fees, taxes, wherever you can save people money -- the child tax credit is another excellent example for folks. i'm not an expert in the fed and macroeconomic policy and most people aren't. we can do very concrete things that actually reduce the costs for americans. >> let me go back to the issue of the unvaccinated. i know you had said, hey, you can't make somebody wear a coat.

but frostbite isn't contagious. this virus is. do you have any other new ideas in your head of how you deal with the unvaccinated here? should there be a penalty? it does seem as if there's more attention being paid to protect the unvaccinated than to reward those who have played by the rules. >> well, i think we want to address the unvaccinated with facts, first and foremost, also with compassion and love. they are often victims of misinformation. we need to do our best to get the very best information from front of them that they need to protect themselves and their family. we've also made monoclonal antibody treatment widely available in colorado. anybodbuses. while it can reduce your hospital monoclonal antibody treatment isn't as eff effective of getting the n

again, a few people get severely ill from anything, certainly still possible, but essentially you have a very, very low risk if you get fully vaccinated. >> one quick political question. senator joe manchin indicated he's not going to support build back better. he's done with it. what is your advice to senate democrats? is there anything you think they have to get done next year before the nobody 2022 elections of which you'll be running for re-election? >> yeah, really deliver on saving people money and reducing costs. that might mean preschool and child care. it might mean the child tax credit, other tax reductions or payroll tax deductions. it might mean receiving people money on a variety of things. i'd love to see the senate go big and tackle climate change that help states like colorado

and others that are taking this seriously, because we have several climate-dependent industries, agriculture, the ski industry. our ski season is open, chuck, but we don't have the normal amount of snow. we'd love to see congress step up and take action on those issues. >> i hear you, but it sounds like if they have to pick a priority, you would pick the economy over the climate provisions if that's the only political feasible rourt to go? >> those are not mutually exclusive. i think our climate destiny is our economic destiny. certainly showing relief for families on costs, preschool, child care does that, other things that can reduce costs, save money. that's certainly a big part of our focus here in colorado. we welcome any help from the united states congress. >> governor jared polis, democrat of colorado, appreciate you coming on and sharing your views. i hope you can enjoy the holiday season. we're all hopefully covid doesn't become as disruptive as

it was last year. thank you, sir. when we come back, build back better is not just in real trouble, it may now be dead. trouble, it may now be dead. voting rights hasn't st. ♪ my work has been viewed by 100 million people. ♪ my work helps save lives. ♪ my work has gone platinum. ♪ my work gives people hope. ♪ i work at fedex. ♪ take your career to the next level with one of our many open positions. ♪

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welcome back. we're glad to see our panelists, although we're back in our remote locations. i'm in a remote location because i've come into close contact with someone who tested positive in the last 48 hours in my household. also with us, pbs "newshour" chief correspondent amna nawaz, phil rubbing kerr from "the washington post," former democratic congresswoman donna edwards and john podhoretz, editor of the commentary. we have a lot to get to. amna, i'm going to begin with you. it already was arguably a deflating political end for the biden administration, and an explanation this morning from joe manchin saying he's done with build back better. now we have omicron. when you think about the first six weeks of 2022, i don't know how the biden administration focuses on anything else. >> you're absolutely right,

chuck. senator manchin, this latest statement is a massive blow. we know the president wanted build back better done as quickly as possible. we know the senate democrats have been saying we wanted it done by christmas. even if you look in the last few days, none of those self-imposed deadlines made a difference to senator nchin, not the holiday deadline, not the imminent expiration of the child tax credit even though some experts sai it could push children back into poverty. senator manchin's concerns, to be clear about this, have been consistent over time. it's the size of the package. it's inflation which has only gotten worse. the president has been clear, they wanted negotiations to continue, even as recently as last night white house officials were saying this is a president biden who knows how to get big historic pieces of legislation through, even with two of the narrowest majority in the house and senate. but this is a massive blow.

it's hard to see a path forward for this now. >> donna edwards, how big of a blow is this to the democratic base? >> i think it's a big blow, frankly. there's no other way to put it. this was a major -- a central piece of the president's agenda. it is something he campaigned on, all of the elements of build back better. it was his priority. now we know that senator manchin, one senator is going to deny the president of the united states his major policy priority. and so i don't know where it goes from here. i know that there are probably house progressives right now who are saying to themselves that's why we wanted to tie the bipartisan infrastructure plan to build back better, because we were afraid all along that senator manchin would back away from this. so there's probably a lot of regret going on, and there are promises that will not be except

to the american people. >> john podhoretz? >> i don't know how joe manchin could have made it any clearer beginning in march of this year that he was not going to support this bill. he said a trillion-five. that's what i'm in for. then the bill comes out, it's 6 trillion, 3.5 trillion. how it's either 2.2 trillion, 1.75 trillion. he told chuck schumer, my number is a trillion five. he wrote an op-ed saying my number is a trillion five. that is joe manchin. it's been joe manchin all year. it's now political malpractice on the part of the biden administration that they did not take him at his word. they do not have a big majority. they have a 50/50 senate. he said, if you go this way, i'm

a no, and they kept saying don't say you're a no, let's negotiate, let's negotiate, let's negotiate. they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. they had victory on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and they held it until way later than they could have had it and touted it. here they are right now with a huge loss at the end of the year. this is very bad politics, and the idea that what this demonstrates is that biden has some kind of political talent for getting big bills through, that has now been a terrible p outcome, one of the worst i think we've seen for a first-year president ever. >> phil rucker, i have to say the head-scratcher for me is, they chose to basically noepgt with everybody else first and hope the pressure campaign would

work. i never understood it at the time, and now obviously it looks like a total strategic miscalculation. >> yeah, chuck. we should keep in mind the backdrop here. the pressure campaign doesn't work if the american people are not behind the president, and the polling for the last several months has indicated a declining popularity for president biden. gallup had numbers recently showing he's nearly as polarizing as president trump was during his presidency with a huge gap in approval between registered republicans and registered democrats. that's the data that somebody like senator manchin is looking at when he's thinking about whether he's going to put his neck on the line, representing a conservative state like west virginia to get behind this agenda. biden was unable to sell these policy proposals with the american people. >> i want to bring up something -- president biden spoke at south carolina state, gave the commencement, and he talked voting rights. take a listen to it.

>> maybe most important of all, we have to protect that sake red right to vote, for god's sake. folks, as john lewis said, it is the only -- without the right to vote, there is no democracy. >> amna, in hindsight now -- he was pretty strong on voting rights on friday. he gave a strong peach in july. in between he folked on build back better. he was elected for two reasons, to deal with covid and to deal with donald trump. not prioritizing voting rights the versus the way they did blp obviously looks like a strategic mistake here. can they revive this at all in 2022 before the elections? >> i think you're starting to see some early signs of that already. you see the president there talking strongly about voting rights which white house officials will say he's said

from the beginning is a priority. we know the vice president has been leading those efforts. i don't you see what happens with the bills when it comes to lawmakers. democrats have twice tried to move forward and stopped by republicans when it comes to expanding voting rights or codifying them. the white house has done what they can from an executive position. they've directed federal agencies to do what they can to expand access. the department of justice has i think doubling the staffing of voting enforcement agencies and are already fighting states where they believe those rights are being challenged. democrats believe there's a fundamental, existential issue here with a spate of legislatures making it harder for people to vote. now we know senate democrats are starting to prioritize it again. we learned of the meeting they 4e8d on friday talking about what amendments, carveouts,

changes could they make to try to get 50 votes. i'm told all options are on the table, schumer has been working on this for month and they do see it as a priority goings into the new year. >> well, between now -- hang on, i've got to get going here. between now and the state of the union it's going to be interesting to see what do they prioritize in the wake of omicron, how much is the child tax credit, what will they try to accomplish before the election season starts? that's an unknown. when we come back, our annual tribute to those we lost in the past

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mouth or tongue swelling... problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. for real protection, ask your doctor about breztri. welcome back. as we do every year, we want to take a moment to look back at some of the iconic people in politics, culture and media whom we lost in the past 12 months. >> don't let anyone ever tell you you are limited because you came from the inner city, didn't come from the right schools. the only thing that should ever be a limitation is your own

dream. ♪ ♪ >> as you know, you go to war with the army you have and not the army you might want or wish to have at the right time. >> my grandfather was a slave. my father was a share cropper, my mother a maid. because this is america, i am now a congresswoman.

>> i thought history would judge the campaign as an honorable campaign, and i believe i will be judged that way. >> good day from washington. i'm roger mudd.

>> mom, i know you didn't want me to do this, but i did; and here it is. >> i don't know what to say except to you, my audience, thank you. instead of goodbye, how about so long?

>> i leave you all tonight with a full heart and a fervent [uplifting music playing] ♪ i had a dream that someday ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ are the stars out tonight? (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ ♪ alexa, play our favorite song again.

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the panel is with us again. one of the things we learned this past week was how involved perez's chief of staff mark meadows was in the events of january 6th. it turns out the january 6th committee is looking more closely into all the planning that led to the january 6th capitol riot. mark meadows, at a minimum, was the concierge for everybody that either had an idea or event they wanted to do. donna edwards, it brings to me -- where is congress heading? i want to quote lisa murkowski who said, it's been a horrible year, hasn't it. it began with an insurrection, it ended with a 4:00 a.m. adjournment and a lot of not-so-good stuff in between. >> it's been a really tough year. it also began with us still fighting covid. we're ending the year in the same place. the reality is that whether we're talking about the economy or politics, what will help get us back to normal is getting

people vaccinated, getting the economy going. and january 6th, we're approaching the anniversary, and the really important thing here is for this january 6th committee to continue to plug away doing its work so that we can create the record that we need for the accountability of everyone from mark meadows to maybe even the former president and on down the line. >> john podhoretz, i found mitch mcconnell's support of what he's learning from the january 6 committee intriguing for this reason. he stopped at the chance of making this fully bipartisan and bicameral. is that a sense that he basically miss calculated, that he thought on january 7th, he thought donald trump would be less of an issue in the republican party, and it turns out he was wrong? >> i think pretty much that's it. i think he thought trump would be in the rear view mirror. he isn't.

one of the hopes for the future of the republican party with the independence that it needs to bring it back into power is for trump not to be the future as he was the past, and we know that because he was a one-term president, and the support that he needed from people who were not hard lined, hard and fast, dyed in the wool republicans wasn't there in 2018 when the midterms were or in 2020 at the end of his presidency, and this commission, particularly if it finds actual hard facts that don't have to be massaged or overly hysterically characterized bipartisan democrats, but simply lays out very calmly and rationally what happened in a way that just seems as net effect of

poisoning a trump future with the independents that can put him over the top. >> it's interesting. phil, does it look like it does anything to change the republican party? what looked like a bunch of rogue individuals that may have had one or two people in the white house winking and nodding, it turns out this felt a little more organized? is that going to chasen any more republicans other than mitch mcconnell? >> more than a little, chuck. we see mark med does was the chief enabler of a lot of these conspiracy theories and a plot to subvert the vote in the weeks and days leading up to january 6th and aided, by the way, by a number of house republicans, elected house republicans. the polling shows us that a majority of republican voters believe the lie from former president trump, that this election was rigged. as long as that lie is believed

as if it were fact by the republican base, then we're going to continue to see republican leaders in lockstep with the former president? >> amna, this gets us back to what the heck is next year going to looklike. we won't have full agreement on what the narrative of january 6th is. we have covid punching us in the face. there's a congress that doesn't seem very functional. what's this election year going to look like? >> it's going to be one to watch, chuck. i don't think any of us are lying if we say we know what the next year will look like. even an hour ago we thought we might have a very different scenario ahead. the most striking thing i think coming from the january 6th committee going into the new year is not only the depth of sort of the organized planning from inside, but also the fact that people saw and could believe what they saw with their own eyes. the messages that we've seen now

reveal from the documents that mark meadows shared about the president's own son and fox primetime hosts expressing concern about the level of violence. these are all things that will carry over into the new year. phil is right. if you believe the election was stolen, nothing about this committee will change your mind. if you believe covid is a hoax, nothing about the new year is going to change your mind. that's a unfortunate the, tough set of circumstances for the president. >> it's been a tough year. it's been a tough december, and it's going to be perhaps a tough start of 2022. let's hope we all take the omicron precaution seriously. i have a special note about a special holiday series on the chuck todd cast feed. meet the alternative history. each episode looks at how things might have changed if one single event would have been different. for instance, what if bill

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check coveredca.com to see your new lower price. covered california, this way to health insurance. enroll by december 31st. this week on "press here," robots roaming the halls of hospitals. computers take on some of the work making your favorite tv shows, and what exactly is the metaverse. a look at the future this week on "press: here." good morning, everyone, i'm scott mcgrew. i have a fear as i get older i'll pooh-pooh some kind of silicon valley valley invention not because it's dumb, but because i'm too old and set in ways to appreciate its